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BAKU, Feb 29 (Reuters) - Production at BP-led oilfields in Azerbaijan edged down to 31.3 million tonnes lastyear, from 31.5 million tonnes in 2014, BP-Azerbaijan said onMonday, contributing to a fall in the country's total output.
Declines at the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) fields, whichaccount for most of Azerbaijan's oil output, have raised concernin the former Soviet republic.
BP said that the consortium spent about $760 million inoperating expenditure and $1.9 billion in capital expenditure onACG activities in 2015.
The company added that 296 million barrels of oil andcondensate had been exported from the Sangachal terminal in2015, down slightly from the 298.5 million barrels exported theprevious year.
Azerbaijan's crude oil and condensate production in 2015fell by 0.8 percent year on year to 41.7 million tonnes, theState Statistics Committee said in January, after plannedmaintenance suspended output at a number of fields.
Output started to decline in May last year as BP suspendedoperations at one platform in the Caspian Sea, West Azeri, for22 days of planned maintenance.
BP suspended operations at another platform, Chirag, on Nov.10. Production resumed after the planned maintenance on Dec. 11.
Natural gas output from the Shah Deniz offshore fields inAzerbaijan was 9.9 billion cubic metres (bcm) last year, thesame as the previous year.
Shah Deniz is developed by a group of investors including BPand Azeri state energy company SOCAR. It is estimated to containbetween 1.2 trillion and 1.5 trillion cubic metres of gas.
Shah Deniz I has been pumping gas since 2006 and gas fromits second stage is expected to reach Europe by 2019/20.
Azerbaijan's natural gas production rose to 29.7 billioncubic metres (bcm) last year, from 29.4 bcm a year earlier.
BP said that the Shah Deniz consortium had spent about $482million in operating expenditure and $4.37 billion in capitalexpenditure last year. (Reporting by Nailia Bagirova and Margarita Antidze; Writing byMargarita Antidze and Maria Kiselyova; Editing by David Goodman)
BP (BP.)
